Alls to the Wall

I hate not being able to post more regularly on this thing. I also hate that I'm continuously working and nearly always behind. I just finished a big meeting with my boss at Mission. I gave him a nice color coded project plan for our NEO rollout. I've been working hard on this for the last few days. Now I get to work hard getting ready to teach the EdGames class on Monday. I am not only introducing a class exercise using wiki, but I'm using Breeze to do it, and have to coordinate with Distance students and a professor who is in New Zealand. Its cool stuff. I'm busy as fuck, though. I do make it down to the beach for a swim a few times a week. And I get to go riding on Friday afternoons and just about never have to travel during rush hour. Its 3:30. I'm about to knock off for the day and hit the beach...poor me

Double Dipping

Yesterday I knew I'd be subbing for my professor. I knew I'd be helping the class work on board games. The class itself was mostly composed of people I know. I'm going to teach them to work on a class wiki next week. And I'm doing it in Breeze, which gives me quite a bit to do. In my other life as an instructional designer at a Credit Union, I stepped in for one of the trainers and taught safety training and ergonomics @ the New Employee Orientation. These were the first two times I've taught since I've been back in America. I forgot how much I like being in front of a class.

Stressing over Stanford

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Originally uploaded by karl@speakeasydesigns.com.

I was under the false impression that the USC game started Saturday at seven PM. I planned to get home before kickoff, then as my Mom and I were walking past Seau's restaurant in Mission Valley I saw the USC game on many of the TV screens. Not only was I missing the game, but it was the second half and the score was 28-17.

Thanks to my superfriend hero, Robin, the game made its way to his VCR and i watched it last night. Not fun knowing your team is losing and worrying about it for almost 36 hours.

The game? We came from behind to win it 31-28.

Fight On!

Not feeling drained

I'm loving the work I'm doing at school and with Mission Fed, I've got so many irons in the fire that I'm waking up at six each morning.. excited about the crap i get to do all day. Really cool stuff. this is my best semester yet. i work long hours, but am more energized by it than drained. My bathtub, on the other hand is a totally different matter. My sister came to stay with me on Tuesday. She has dentist/orthodontist appointments in San Diego yesterday and crashed with me. My friend Lori stays with me on Tuesday, too, so we had a full house. Sister got up first, (after a rude brotherly playfulness) showered, came out and announced. "Your bathtub doesn't drain." She was right. I took it apart and looked at it. The drain wasn't clogged, but the latch that pulls the plug up was detached, so I've got the same amount of water I had yesterday.. still there on Thursday morning.

Official Wannabe

I attended a faculty meeting today. All in all it was all I expected it would be. A little dull, and boring to the outsider.. but I thought it was great.

good week end

I had a terrific ride then a nice meal at an Indian place on Friday night, a saturday filled with blog class on Saturday from 8-4, then Sunday setting up the new wiki site. Its amazing how talented we've become with the wikis. I got to ride today and am enjoying a clean house, with clean laundry, a vacuumed rug, and a clear desk.

another terrific fRIDEday

Can't wait to revisit Snake Trail when we go riding today. Three lucky individuals will be heading to Mission trails on a friday at 3 to go ride around in the dirt. Awesome! I can't wait. Update: It was a great ride. No significant crashes, no mechanical hassles other than a crank noise that reappeared. I even used the bike rack on the new Camry with great delight.

topped with parmesan cheese & butt kicking,

The other day I met a couple friends of mine for a nice lunch. After careful consideration, I decided on a chicken burrito. They had lots of other good things to eat... tempting stuff... but I made this choice because the menu claimed it was topped with parmesan cheese & butt kicking, red salsa. I guess it was the salsa that was butt kicking, but the punctuation made me laugh. In part I ordered it just so I could imagine sitting there while the waiter goes into the kitchen and says..."I've got a big guy out here.. How are we gonna kick his butt?" I had already checked every one of them out, and yeah. I could take them. I had fun ordering. I was sure to call it by its whole name. Can I get the roasted chicken burrito topped with parmesan cheese, but could you hold the butt kicking? or maybe put it on the side? I'm really too busy for that today. The burrito arrived, both the meal and the friends were terrific. The salsa was excellent, and the waiter, sadly, didn't get the joke.

googling for Bullplop

I was googling for Bullplop this morning, when I realized. Back when I owned google's top spot for the word bullplop, I was proud as punch. Think about it. I was the number one source for bullplop on the en-tire internet. And I still was when I checked this morning. The old site at my portfolio website continues hosting a page /bullplop.html but since the new posts go up on BullPlopDotCom I thought I'd write a self-referencing page. Bullplop.com will climb! How do I know I can retake the top spot atop the bullplop google search? Because the notes I wrote once on the snipsnap are showing up on the first page of results. No doubt bullplop.com can make its way to number one. Feel free to add a comment with a link to bullplop.com if you are a believer in my cause. Google Alert is a terrific way to get information on any subject. I'm going to have to set up a google alert for the word Bullplop.

in my country there is problem

I like.

High Five

My job at Mission Federal has been ideal. I'm working right now. From home. After a trip to the beach on my mountain bike, a bit of exercise, then a cell phone call to my boss to tell him I won't be coming in to work until Wednesday afternoon. We have a meeting Thursday morning, then he told me to stay out of the office on Friday because the anthropology student that shares the office with me will be conducting interviews. The boss is a great person to work for. He's got a great sense of humor. I emailed him yesterday after I had a solution for our problems and told him if he loves the idea to come in my office and give me a high five, and if he didn't to share the feedback with me in an email. I called up this morning, like I said, after riding my bike across the rocks of Sunset Cliffs for the first time. When he hears that its me he says. "If you were here right now we'd be high fiving." I finally solved the riddle of how to make the training at Mission Federal please both the decision makers.

• My boss is the training manager, who likes leading New Employee Orientation sessions once a month.
• Currently he leads them once every two weeks.
• He works with the HR manager, who wants the sessions to be held every week.
• I'm brought in from the outside to make a decision about how it should be done.

After two months there, I'm very comfortable with all the content, from the benefits training we do, to the various programs for employees, to the way the information could be structured. The real question was the delivery system to get the point across. Right now its all instructor led. They don't even use a computer. They just play a few videotapes. There isn't even a computer in the room. What should we do? I came to learn of the new "Enlighten" system they use on the TVs for the members to watch while they're in the branches. It was just bought by a vendor named "enlighten" who intersperses a live closed circuit feed with whatever media we'd like to stream. We are going to use the TVs in the branches to train the new employees every week on monday. We're all excited and high fiving because most of the content will be covered on the TVs for an hour before the branch opens.. managers keep their employees for the day. nobody has to drive to sorrento valley. and we dont have to use our busy training manager teaching newhire classes every week. In the words of my man, Borat. High Five! Thanks to Cringehumor.net for the sound clip, and The Borat Site for the image.

up and ploppin

Some debut that was! I bought this domain. I was all excited, then i don't post for two weeks. Bullplop.com is finally working. I tried unsuccessfully several times to post. It turns out all I needed was a slash in the right place on my publishing settings, and the bull will be plopping out regularly. Three Cheers to Robin for troubleshooting me back in the blogging game. Its gone now, but i had nine different test pages saying Work, Damnit!